Opinion

What a gracious privilege it is to be called to bear the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. But there is no doubt this comes with a high cost. To follow Christ, one must exercise the graces of love, humility, patience, self-denial, and a willingness to lay their life down for the cause of Christ. In other words, we should as Christians be laboring with all diligence to be conformed to the image of Christ by offering our body as a living sacrifice unto God. That is, we should strive to be like Christ in the purity of His human nature, for He emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Recall His self-denial and sacrificial love He demonstrated in the Garden of Gethsemane. The scriptures bring to our fading memory the very moment of suffering where the Son of God entered into an intense conflict within Himself crying in agony, “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done,” as His sweat became like great drops of blood, falling down upon the ground.